In the first major appointment of his papacy, Pope Leo XIV has chosen an Italian expert in canon law to succeed him as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Source: CNS.
Archbishop Filippo Iannone O Carm, 67, has led the Dicastery for Legislative Texts since 2018 and will begin his new role on October 15, the Vatican press office announced on Friday.
Pope Leo, as Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, led the Dicastery for Bishops and the pontifical commission from early 2023 until his election as Pope in May.
The dicastery coordinates the search for candidates to fill the office of bishop in most Latin-rite dioceses around the world and makes recommendations about their appointments to the Pope. It also deals with setting up, uniting, suppressing dioceses, changing diocesan boundaries, setting up military ordinariates and ordinariates for Catholics who have come from the Anglican Communion.
The dicastery “cooperates with the bishops in all matters concerning the correct and fruitful exercise of the pastoral office entrusted to them,” according to the constitution, Praedicate Evangelium.
The prefect of the dicastery can organise an apostolic visitation of a diocese where a bishop appears to be struggling, and it is involved in the process of investigating bishops suspected of mishandling or covering up cases of sexual abuse.
As head of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, Archbishop Iannone was deeply involved with the revision of the Code of Canon Law’s Book VI: Penal Sanctions in the Church, one of seven books that make up the code for the Latin rite of the Catholic Church; with updated descriptions of the crimes of sexual abuse, including child pornography, and the required actions of a bishop or superior of a religious order in handling allegations, it was promulgated by Pope Francis in 2021.
The archbishop also led the preparation of the 2023 update of Vos Estis Lux Mund (You are the light of the world), which set out the procedures for bishops, religious superiors and the heads of international Catholic movements to investigate allegations of sexual abuse or the cover-up of abuse.Â
The new prefect was born in Naples on December 13, 1957, and entered the Carmelites in 1976 after finishing high school. He completed his bachelor’s in theology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy and then earned a doctorate in both civil and canon law from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.
While naming Archbishop Iannone head of the dicastery, Pope Leo also reappointed for five-year terms Archbishop Ilson de Jesus Montanari as dicastery secretary and Msgr. Ivan Kovac as undersecretary of the dicastery.
FULL STORY
Pope taps Italian canon lawyer for top position at Dicastery for Bishops (By Cindy Wooden, CNS)
